More Taste Less Filling: The shifter Any good or not?


Advice

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Shadow Lodge

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WatersLethe wrote:
Rosc wrote:

The idea of claws, aspect, and wild shape create a smooth progression towards your class fantasy. You begin with at-will claws without any hoops to jump through. No feat tax, no oddball ranger style, no Mutagen requirements, and no Sorcerer dips. It's as much a blessing as UC Rogue's dex to damage, if for different reasons. Aspects are hardly original, but they provide a decent enough X/day resource that scales..... modestly, once you average out the choices. And while I will fully admit that the druid is more powerful at shape shifting, I feel like wild shape is a sort of 'micro capstone' in the mechanics-driven story arc that is your Aspect reaching its potential. I forsee a lot of fun character moments in games with creative GMs.

Overall, the class isn't terrible powerful, but it looks fun. And for me, that's enough. If I had to compare this class' release to anything else, it would be the UC Summoner. Still fine on its own, and quite viable, but it lives in the shadow of something with far more raw potential.

...

The claws class feature clashes with any race that grants claws, almost contemptuously. They also saddle you with dagger damage dice for 7 levels while outside of wild shape. Wild shape's value is spiky as hell, massively valuable at level 4 but dropping rapidly thereafter. But the real kicker is that everything pushes the Shifter toward shifting as little as possible, maximizing their time in their wild shape form of choice.

This and the bolded part in particular. It's pretty f+%&ed up when you have a class all about shifting that is pressed to shift as little as possible. You are basically punished by the inner workings to actually play the class as little as possible.


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I Think that probably sums up the biggest problem with the shifter. The duration of shifting. How much is enough and how much is to much? I think currently most of them are not enough. (that and it needs a special shifter belt item to put in that slot... and yes I am going to keep pushing that.)

Shadow Lodge

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Aside: Anyone else notice how many like, glaring theme appropriate weapons options are missing from these guys? Like, I have no problem with the no bows thing, a short ranged thrown weapon thing can be pretty cool actually, but why the hell can't they use atlatls, or even javelins?! Like, how does a sharp pointy stick designed for throwing and a piece of wood to extend your throw NOT work with the whole primitive druid, no metallurgy thing they are doing?

And that's just basic gear. Like, if you're going to have a specialized list like this why didn't the devs pull even more of the esoteric stuff up on their proficiencies and let the Shifter be a place to shine a light on them?

I mean, wouldn't it be awesome to have like bolas, nets, boomerangs, and the harpoon as free starter weapons? Or like handaxes, throwing axes, and the terbutjes & tepoztopilli? Shit, at least give them freakin Greatclubs. They aren't great, but how the hell does the freakin' Shifter, the class that uses natural weapons, not know how to use a big stick that does d10 but does know how to use it when it's a d6 double weapon?


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Why not more natural weapon options too like acid spit and barbed quills that launch from your body.

Shadow Lodge

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Vidmaster7 wrote:
I Think that probably sums up the biggest problem with the shifter. The duration of shifting. How much is enough and how much is to much? I think currently most of them are not enough. (that and it needs a special shifter belt item to put in that slot... and yes I am going to keep pushing that.)

I think it isn't the duration so much as the uses. Having it broken up into uses per day that last hours per level is both counter productive to a class that completely pivots on the ability and nothing else (unlike say druids, alchemists, or hunters) and actually rings of needless old edition (like 3.5 edition) complications.

Why not just simplify like they did with barbarian's rage from 3.5 to Pathfinder? Drop the uses per day and just make it X hours per level with hour min uses? Then you get the ability to shift way more, but still have to be careful about overuse. I talked about this a few pages back and have been following that ethos throughout some rebuilds/hotfixes I've been fiddling with. Seems much stronger and surprisingly easier to track.

Shadow Lodge

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Vidmaster7 wrote:
Why not more natural weapon options too like acid spit and barbed quills that launch from your body.

Ha! They make it so that the Snake Aspect, which turns into a King Cobra, doesn't get his venom UNTIL 15TH and ONLY ON ATTACKS OF OPPORTUNITY! I think that the dev's are already too afraid of op'ing the class that they'll nerf the fun out of it.

Hell, what'd be really cool is if you got magical beast aspect options a la Beast Shape III that had level requirements like Alchemist Discoveries or Rogue Talents.

Wouldn't it be awesome to actually get to turn into say, a hydra, chimera, or owlbear at like 5th or 7th but you need like the snake (hydra); snake, lion/tiger, bull (chimera); or bear & owl (owlbear) to get it? And you got like, cool powers that sync with them, like fast healing/limited regen with the hydra or a breath weapon & flight with the chimera, or something totally new and batshit with the owlbear (seriously, they don't get much but they are tabletop history so you could do something funny and cool like yank some limited mythic powers for them and let yourself be like the 1st owlbear and it'd be cool)?

Like, wouldn't that be amazing?


Or displacement from one of the purple tentacle kittys!

your right that would be awesome. The concept of the class really deserves its own book.


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Pathfinder Rulebook Subscriber
doc the grey wrote:


Why not just simplify like they did with barbarian's rage from 3.5 to Pathfinder?

You're absolutely right about the usage thing. It's incredibly strange that they changed the way Rage works to be less clunky and then left wild shape as-is, even when building an ostensibly simple wildshaper.

It's just... not a good feeling to hit level 4, pop into tiger form for a fight and then realize that you're stuck in tiger form for the next four hours because if you shift out your combat ability goes down the toilet.

Also means campaign dynamics really matter for how combat goes. If you're dungeon crawling and there's a bunch of encounters all in a row you're a pounce mauling death machine.

But if you're in a campaign that has a fight, then some sort of more social encounter you have to essentially make a conscious choice whether to either stay a tiger and essentially sit out that scene or change back and lose a lot of effectiveness if there's a combat later in the day. The shifter is billed as a simpler class for newer players, but is that kind of scenario really one we want to put new players into? It doesn't feel like it to me.

Obviously the problem gets less pronouncd at 6 when you get a second usage, but it's still not a fun dilemma to deal with. Not to mention as others have sad earlier in the thread it devalues utility forms.

Shadow Lodge

Vidmaster7 wrote:

Or displacement from one of the purple tentacle kittys!

your right that would be awesome. The concept of the class really deserves its own book.

They legally can't do displacer beasts because WotC owns them but now you're getting the idea! I've waited decades for more magical beast choices in this game and 3.5 and this would be a great place to stick it. It feels foolish that it's 2017 and it's still basically impossible or just not worth it to get a freakin magical beast companion or...

Holy shit,

Why isn't their a Shifter that can turn into dragons?

0.0

*heavy breathing*

I have something I'm going to have to work on...

Shadow Lodge

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Squiggit wrote:
doc the grey wrote:


Why not just simplify like they did with barbarian's rage from 3.5 to Pathfinder?

You're absolutely right about the usage thing. It's incredibly strange that they changed the way Rage works to be less clunky and then left wild shape as-is, even when building an ostensibly simple wildshaper.

It's just... not a good feeling to hit level 4, pop into tiger form for a fight and then realize that you're stuck in tiger form for the next four hours because if you shift out your combat ability goes down the toilet.

Also means campaign dynamics really matter for how combat goes. If you're dungeon crawling and there's a bunch of encounters all in a row you're a pounce mauling death machine.

But if you're in a campaign that has a fight, then some sort of more social encounter you have to essentially make a conscious choice whether to either stay a tiger and essentially sit out that scene or change back and lose a lot of effectiveness if there's a combat later in the day. The shifter is billed as a simpler class for newer players, but is that kind of scenario really one we want to put new players into? It doesn't feel like it to me.

Obviously the problem gets less pronounced at 6 when you get a second usage, but it's still not a fun dilemma to deal with. Not to mention as others have sad earlier in the thread it devalues utility forms.

I think they didn't change Wild Shape for Druid's because well, they didn't need to be any better than they already are. But for the Shifter it's a must, without anything else in their kit that those other classes have and a focus on transforming into animals, the TURNS INTO ANIMAL ability needs to be easy to understand, use, and play with from the gate and the class doesn't do that.

In fact, with the design as it is now it basically makes certain animal aspects completely unplayable as they fill a design niche that is mechanically too expense to waste the finite resources of shifting on.

Like, why would you EVER take the mouse save in the most specific of games and builds? Turning into a mouse to spy on a secret council meeting for 10 mins means that I have to either accept turning back and killing my only shift for the day or be a mouse for 4+ hours and be completely useless for anything that isn't specifically designed to be accomplishable by a character who can lift like 2 lbs tops. As it stands I'm giving up turning into a tiger, falcon, deinonychus, or even the wolverine for potentially 6 hours to do that, and that's assuming I am 6th and have 2 aspects. God I can only imagine how much it would suck to be a mouse shifter from 4th-5th when your Wild Shape is basically an arcane eye spell and your minor form is an evasion for 4 mins a day that I have to turn on BEFORE the evasion event happens. Like imagine that, a mouse player stuck in a room with a bomb, has to FIGURE OUT THAT HE IS STUCK IN A BOMB ROOM THEN TIME HIS SHIFT TO ACTIVATE LESS THAN A MINUTE BEFORE IT GOES OFF TO ACTUALLY GET TO USE HIS ABILITY.

And that's an easy one. You're basically never going to get to use it vs. traps unless you know EXACTLY where they are and when all of them are going to spring, and you'll somehow have to know the evasion based ambush of fireballs is happening before they happen so as to kick it on.

That is a design problem.


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Squiggit wrote:
doc the grey wrote:


Why not just simplify like they did with barbarian's rage from 3.5 to Pathfinder?

You're absolutely right about the usage thing. It's incredibly strange that they changed the way Rage works to be less clunky and then left wild shape as-is, even when building an ostensibly simple wildshaper.

It's just... not a good feeling to hit level 4, pop into tiger form for a fight and then realize that you're stuck in tiger form for the next four hours because if you shift out your combat ability goes down the toilet.

Also means campaign dynamics really matter for how combat goes. If you're dungeon crawling and there's a bunch of encounters all in a row you're a pounce mauling death machine.

But if you're in a campaign that has a fight, then some sort of more social encounter you have to essentially make a conscious choice whether to either stay a tiger and essentially sit out that scene or change back and lose a lot of effectiveness if there's a combat later in the day. The shifter is billed as a simpler class for newer players, but is that kind of scenario really one we want to put new players into? It doesn't feel like it to me.

Obviously the problem gets less pronouncd at 6 when you get a second usage, but it's still not a fun dilemma to deal with. Not to mention as others have sad earlier in the thread it devalues utility forms.

Main reason why I like weretouched so much.


Alright here is a question I'm wondering. if the shifter could shift as often as he felt without a duration would the be WAY overpowered?


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Vidmaster7 wrote:
Alright here is a question I'm wondering. if the shifter could shift as often as he felt without a duration would the be WAY overpowered?

I don't believe so.


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That is my take to jar. I don't think the combat bonuses make them any better then martial classes and I don't think the utility of being able to turn into animals would put them past the options of most casters. Even combining those two things would not make them op.


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Exactly.
They basically have the same power as a druid. When have you EVER seen a druid use all of their spells, and all of their uses of wildshape?

The druid has enough "uses/duration" across it's class features that it is 'effectively' at will.

Making the shifter at will would not unbalance it.

We have circled around here to something I suggested in the product discusion, or what I expected rather.

At will base wildshape, limmited to forms or not, but at will as a one round round action.
As they level they can do it as a faster action.
One round-full-standard-move-swift-free

They then have a pool based on wisdom or con that they can burn to gain minute duration chimera abilities.
So at level 6 say they have say 6 minutes a day that they can fuse one of their aspects with whatever form they are using. Or if they are limmited in wildshape forms you can burn uses to get other animals or chimera them with a form.

Aspects are always on but only a few at a time

Shadow Lodge

Vidmaster7 wrote:
Alright here is a question I'm wondering. if the shifter could shift as often as he felt without a duration would the be WAY overpowered?

Forewarned:
It's like 5 am here so I might be a bit too tired to be answering this.

I think it depends on their plans for the class and what expansions they add. As the aspects stand now, no, I don't think it would imbalance them too much as most of them have such low increase in power that it wouldn't matter to give them to them all the time. That said, doing so with the current options would likely just exacerbate the selection problems the class already has, as you can still only be in 1 form at a time, and the argument of why should I turn into a stage when I could be pouncy mckilling machine the tiger or deinonychus will just be more pronounced. You'd likely see a lot of games where players are just tiger full time, which, considering we aren't allowed to just play awakened animals, is likely against the intent of the class they were making.

Putting a limit on it helps on a dev level get players to make decisions about whether or not to use their powers and maybe encourage them to try some other approaches like being human or w/e and it keeps us from just looking at the shifter and going, "why the hell didn't he just play an awakened tiger with PC levels?"


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Tiger all the time? sounds like feral druid (world of warcraft). Id be so down for that.

Dark Archive

PossibleCabbage wrote:
So as someone who has not played an Alchemist, Natural attack style ranger, a Sorcerer with a bloodline that grants claws, or anybody else who uses natural weapons I might be missing something, but what precisely is the appeal of claws?

Thematically, claws are rad. I find an inherent joy in using natural attacks, and you absolutely can stack them as a base form shifter. Start with claws, play a race that can get a bite, slap on your pointy elephant hat for effect, and get yourself a rad implant that may or may not stack as long as you can afford more. Become the Arachnid Kitsune of your dreams.

Boom. You now have a buttload of attacks that all go at your full BAB, and the value of that amulet of mighty fists is starting to look like a steal.

WatersLethe wrote:
I disagree with anything about the Shifter having "smooth progression" or being anything but passingly cognizant of its class fantasy.

The thing that stuck out to me was the fact that Aspect serves as that 'missing link' between level 1 and 4, where you get Wild Shape. It makes the change in play style feels less jarring, at least thematically.

Rosc wrote:
I'll whip up a PFS friendly build or two later tonight, just for funsies.

PFS Friendly Build:

This man wears noble clothes in the style of Ustalav, his calm demeanor contrasting with the sharp canines that gleam in the moonlight.
Ulrich the Bastard, Shifter 5 (FCB: Skills)
LG Half-Orc (Toothy alternate racial)
STR 15(+2 racial, +2 belt, +1 at level up), DEX 14, CON 14, INT 12, WIS 14, CHA 7
Traits: Student of Philosophy, World Traveler (Diplomacy)
Feats: Pass for Human, Power Attack, Iron Will
Skills: Diplomacy +10, Disguise +3 (+13 to appear Human), Knowledge(Nature) +9, Perception +10, Stealth +9, Survival +10
Combat Gear: +1 Lamellar Armor (Leather), Cloak of Resistance +1, Amulet of Mighty Fists +1, Belt of Strength +2, Sling, 10 Sling Bullets
Consumables/Misc: Wand of Cure Light Wounds, Potion of Remove Blindness/Deafness, Potion of Enlarge Person, Wayfinder, Masterwork Backpack, Noble's Clothing + Jewelery

Speed: 30
Melee: 2 Claws +11 (1d4+6), Bite +11 (1d4+6)
Ranged: Sling +7 (1d4+5)
HP: 44
AC: 19
CMB +10, CMD 23
Fort +7, Ref +7, Will +5
Aspects: Wolf, Bat


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I said it a while ago about the weapon proficiency and would love to see the shifter have bolas, boomarang, blowgun, net, and whip. Also great club, javelin, long spear, and short bow would fit as well. Maybe even chakram, hunga munga, hand axe, lasso, and throwing axe as well.

Speaking of mage armor and bracers of armor, I would give the shifter a built in armor bonus(like mage armor) but functions in any form. It would start at +2 at level one and increase based on level maxing out around +10 to +14 range.

Shadow Lodge

PossibleCabbage wrote:
Dragonborn3 wrote:
The problem with Elementalist is that you aren't told like what damage your should be dealing.
That's going to be fixed by errata, and in the meantime the GM can pretty easily make a ruling (I'd say earth-acid, fire-fire, air-electric, water- cold, etc.)

I hope not. Except for fire elementals the others don't make sense. Especially with the Kineticist around.


Pathfinder Rulebook Subscriber

I don't get why some people get so incensed about elemental damage types. Acid-earth is a bit odd but they're generally fine and even that shouldn't really be all that big a deal.

Shadow Lodge

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Well if Earth, Air, and Water elementals deal acid, electricity, and cold damage with their slam attacks....


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At-will Wild Shape wouldn't at all be unbalanced for a Shifter. It would be basic functionality of the concept, considering you only get 5 forms over the entire career of the class, counting 20th level. All you need to do to make me actually in favour of this class is give them at-will Wild Shape and a bonus feat at 6th, 12th, and 18th like a Cavalier.
If you want to balance it out, make entering Wild Shape a standard or full-round action and give the Shifter a Wisdom-based pool of quick-shapes that reduce it to a swift action.
A nice bonus would be making the capstone give you access to all 15 Aspects, but that's not particularly needed.
Speaking of at-will Wild Shape, anyone notice something missing from the Shifter at 20th level that the Druid and Feral Hunter get for their Wild Shapes?


Vidmaster7 wrote:
Why not more natural weapon options too like acid spit and barbed quills that launch from your body.

For what it's worth, Ultimate Wilderness apparently (seen it mentioned, not seen the text) itself already has both for the Sniper Cactus and Corpse-Eater-Fungus animal companions (possibly other stuff).


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So I noticed some weirdness with the fiendflesh shifter, in that it keeps wild empathy, woodland stride,track, and trackless step as class features and must continue to revere nature because the ex-shifter clause still applies to them.

But it is kinda nifty that they can get resistence 40 to either electricity or fire at level 10. Whoot whoot.

Silver Crusade

Here's a potential shifter build - please let me know if I'm getting this right:

Level 15: Major Mouse form (tiny mouse with one bite attack, no AoO for going through threatened squares or going into people's squares)

+

3 minor aspects: mouse (improved evasion), bat (darkvision 90 and blindsense 15), bear (CON +6)

+

animal totem tattoo (ape) to gain two slam attacks

+

apply shifter claws damage to the two slams

(or can I apply to the two slams and the bite? i.e. did they mean you can add to two different types of nat. attacks or 2 nat. attacks total?)

Of course the above build would have amulet of mighty fists with agile property, belt of dex + 6 and helm of mammoth lords, scorpion tail attachment and more if I can think of it...

Thank you!

Silver Crusade

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Bloodrealm wrote:
At-will Wild Shape wouldn't at all be unbalanced for a Shifter.

As far as I can read it it's pretty much at will already: "A shifter can use this ability an additional time per day at 6th level and every 2 levels thereafter, for a total of eight times per day at 18th level."

At level 10 you're shifting 4 times per day at 10 hours each...

Shadow Lodge

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If you use it once a day and can only do it once per day at the level you get it... then it's not at-will. If you want to be 'fluid in form' like the class description says and you can't... same thing.

Silver Crusade

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That's sort of the problem; at level 10, so halfway through your progression, you only get 4 unique shifted forms per day. They last a very long time, sure, but unless you want to stay a mouse for 10 hours that's hardly useful. The idea was that the shifter should be the class that could change form to suit the situation, not be the class that would rather remain a tiger than have to morph out and lose one of his daily uses.


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Pathfinder Lost Omens, Rulebook Subscriber
Daniel Yeatman wrote:
That's sort of the problem; at level 10, so halfway through your progression, you only get 4 unique shifted forms per day. They last a very long time, sure, but unless you want to stay a mouse for 10 hours that's hardly useful. The idea was that the shifter should be the class that could change form to suit the situation, not be the class that would rather remain a tiger than have to morph out and lose one of his daily uses.

To me, this is the key problem. A Shifter should shift to solve problems. People are saying "You don't need a bow, you can take a flight form" (which, by the way, is non sequitur since being able to engage in melee during a ranged encounter isn't always useful or even a good idea) but look at the problems with that: you're always assumed to take a flight capable aspect in addition to your main aspect, you sacrifice being able to have a swim speed or have the recon ability of a mouse, or the str boost of the bull for how many more levels? Then you have to make choices between using your shifting ability to solve problems, or contribute in RP situations or in combat.

Huge swaths of my problems with the class go away if they get access to more frequent shifting and more flexibility in the forms they can choose whenever they do shift.


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Well, when you try to make a complex thing more simple, you also have to sacrifice the benefits of complexity. In the case of strategy, this means you can't create some complex plan or methodology, because making it too complex makes it too complicated, and when Paizo wanted to design a shapeshifting class, they valued having simplicity over complexity.

And as I've stated before, when they made a class like this, they didn't make it with the idea of complexity, for fear of making it too hard of a class to understand. Unfortunately, when the class' defining feature is simplified, akin to Beginner's Box level understanding, you also cut out one of the biggest sources of power and building with the class with it.

The most silly thing about the design path they took is that Pathfinder and 3.X have always been games that were complex and have a lot of depth to them. I don't understand why they would go with a simplification concept of design (that failed horribly in accomplishing the task it was set out to do) when so many other factors in the game before this class have been made with a more broad level of complexion. I mean, to this day, we still have people making threads about Spell Combat and Spellstrike and questioning how they are supposed to work, even though at most tables they function just fine, and at a level that is both gratifying and powerful, and rewards players for using their feature(s) intelligently.

You don't get that sort of power or flexibility with the Shifter. Compared to a Druid, they have even less flexibility and options than a Druid does, and a Druid is honestly more difficult to play than a Magus in my experience, due to their invaluable flexibility of builds. (Melee, spellcasting, healing, supporting? Druids can be built to do just about any one of those things, whereas Magi are almost exclusively built with the goal of beatsticking stuff with using weapons and spells simultaneously.)


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Yeah, the fact that the Shifter discourages shifting out of Tiger, Dinosaur, Bear, etc. form because you need to, say, talk to someone, as this wastes one of your limited important class features is my primary issue with the class (and why the Oozemorph appeals to me- you want to stay shifted for as long as possible, so you can, like, talk.)

I'm not totally clear on why you couldn't have the shifter be able to shift back and forth between tiger and human for a period that lasts one hour per level per use of Wild Shape. That would make the class much more playable for me.

I guess the Elementalist can at least communicate with their own party while wild-shifted if they learn all the elemental languages. So that's good, at least.


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Would it have really been so hard to say, "Shift as X polymorph spell, select Y abilities from the list instead of finding a form then matching up the abilities."?

Even if you wanted to keep the druid theme. Beast, plant, and elemental shifting should be one class not three versions of the same class.

It just doesn't sound cool, even if the math lines up, a class has to feel cool. Hell crb rogue does a way better job at feeling cool and it is mechanically trash.

Dark Archive

Milo v3 wrote:
Me and my mate were talking about trying to justify how Acid = Earth last night actually. We came up with Earth becoming associated with alchemy in the setting.

While I'm not a fan of the acid / earth association, I fanwanked that earth represented the strength and solidity of matter, and that acid took that away form a solid object, making it run like liquid. So acid was more or less 'taking the earth principles' out of solid matter, in an alchemical sense.

But really, that logic is an obvious kludge, since cold would be part of fire (representing a removal of fire from matter), if I followed my own logic. :)

Earth's 'damage type' should be bludgeoning, because it throws rocks at you. Acid should be water. :)

Shadow Lodge

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To play devil's advocate with myself, aren't there acidic minerals?


Set wrote:
Milo v3 wrote:
Me and my mate were talking about trying to justify how Acid = Earth last night actually. We came up with Earth becoming associated with alchemy in the setting.

While I'm not a fan of the acid / earth association, I fanwanked that earth represented the strength and solidity of matter, and that acid took that away form a solid object, making it run like liquid. So acid was more or less 'taking the earth principles' out of solid matter, in an alchemical sense.

But really, that logic is an obvious kludge, since cold would be part of fire (representing a removal of fire from matter), if I followed my own logic. :)

Earth's 'damage type' should be bludgeoning, because it throws rocks at you. Acid should be water. :)

Isn't liquid earth magma?

Shadow Lodge

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Ah yes, the debate over the logic of fantasy elements...


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While we're on this derail, it's intersting to note that the classical elements did orignally have assigned properties: Fire was hot and dry, Air was hot and wet, earth was cold and dry, water was cold and wet.

I've toyed with more fully going over to a 5 element system with
fire-fire
water-cold
earth-sonic
metal-electricity
wood-acid

Also, where are my siderokineticists?


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Dragonborn3 wrote:
To play devil's advocate with myself, aren't there acidic minerals?

There are, for example metal sulfides react with air to produce sulfuric acid (and other stuff.) There are also some extremely acidic environments you will find underground where acidophilic microbes thrive, because there isn't anything around (other forms of life, the sun) to keep them from creating the sorts of environments they do well in.


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PossibleCabbage wrote:
Dragonborn3 wrote:
To play devil's advocate with myself, aren't there acidic minerals?
There are, for example metal sulfides react with air to produce sulfuric acid (and other stuff.) There are also some extremely acidic environments you will find underground where acidophilic microbes thrive, because there isn't anything around (other forms of life, the sun) to keep them from creating the sorts of environments they do well in.

I'm now sold on acid being earth by more than just process of elimination.


I feel like even though we think of acids as liquids, they're not acidic because of the medium, it's because of the stuff *in* the liquid (mine runoff is acidic because of what's in the mines, not because of the nature of streams). So acid needs water much like flames needs air.


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PossibleCabbage wrote:
I feel like even though we think of acids as liquids, they're not acidic because of the medium, it's because of the stuff *in* the liquid (mine runoff is acidic because of what's in the mines, not because of the nature of streams). So acid needs water much like flames needs air.

You can understand people's confusion. It's not like any of this acid stuff is basic.


Rhedyn wrote:
PossibleCabbage wrote:
I feel like even though we think of acids as liquids, they're not acidic because of the medium, it's because of the stuff *in* the liquid (mine runoff is acidic because of what's in the mines, not because of the nature of streams). So acid needs water much like flames needs air.
You can understand people's confusion. It's not like any of this acid stuff is basic.

EEEEEEEYYYYYYYY!!!


Phranklin wrote:

Major Mouse form

...
animal totem tattoo (ape) to gain two slam attacks

Druid shaman archetype totem transformations don't work with wild shape.


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Does anybody else feel that the Shifter may not have succeeded at making Wild Shape easy?

Like I've been playing around with builds today to see if I can throw together anything I like, and when I am figuring out what I add for a specific form I need to have at hand-
- The text of the appropriate spell wild shape refers to (to see what abilities the creature has).
- The bestiary entry for the creature in question (because Beast Shape 2, for example, only adds some of those.)
- A copy of Ultimate Wilderness. (because the Shifter further restricts what you get.)

Like for an actual character, you just write down what you get in Tiger form once and are done with it, but in planning a character this is kind of a pain.

A pain we accept and understand with druids, because the druid is a very complicated class, but the shifter was supposed to be "Entry Level" so I wish there would have been a simpler way to do this. Like I would be hesitant to recommend the class to a new player since it has central features that require reference to multiple books at once to understand (and it's not like the druid in that the rest of the chassis is powerful enough to carry its weight if you never wild shape.)

Silver Crusade

voideternal wrote:
Phranklin wrote:

Major Mouse form

...
animal totem tattoo (ape) to gain two slam attacks
Druid shaman archetype totem transformations don't work with wild shape.

Whoa! major bummer... what other item would grant claws? (PFS approved I mean)


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To me, this whole "the shifter is meant to be simple" honestly sounds like an excuse to explain the subpar class features of the class... Maybe I just never heard anything about the shifter being an entry class before the release of UW, but that's what it looks like to me.

It's not exactly uncommon for Paizo to greatly overvalue abilities and class features for non-casters. Full BAB, scaling claw damage and Wis-to-AC are the kind of thing that Paizo is likely to think is way better than it actually is. "It has better BAB and AC than a Druid! That means the Shifter is powerful!"

This class definitely needed a public playtest. But right now, it feels like the Shifter barely got a revision before going to print. Many ACG classes were saved from being huge disappointments precisely because feeeback was heard (including the Hunter, who despite being redundant, at least turned out to be a very solid and functional class).

Ignoring (or in this case: not even allowing) feedback because some people say mean things sometimes is not only counter-productive but also unfair to the community, who by a far margin tends to be too forgiving, if anything. Everyone and anyone who deals with customers has to tolerate some jerks. That's no excuse to block all feedback and criticism from your public.

Now the Shifter became another case of "Swashbuckler design". And to make things worse: I think it's more likely for Druids and Hunters to be nerfed than for the Shifter to get a much needed buff.


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PossibleCabbage wrote:
Does anybody else feel that the Shifter may not have succeeded at making Wild Shape easy?

You mean like constantly referring to Beast Shape II even though it works almost entirely differently from Beast Shape II? Or some attacks applying Shifter Claws but not others? Or sometimes listing what natural attacks the forms have and sometimes not, occasionally listing only some of them *cough*Deinonychus' foreclaw *cough*? Or listing the forms like "as per this, except this, this, this"? Or shapeshifting not being an entry-level-friendly concept to begin with?

I mean sure, you can take one of the extremely bad (even in comparison to the moderately unimpressive base Shifter) archetypes to make it simpler, but...


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Pathfinder Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

The shifter is so bad that all discussion I could find about the class has died outside of this specific thread. In some places it's been a couple weeks since anyone talked about the new class. No excitement for it whatsoever. Just expressed disappointment. I figured there at least would be a few more weeks of people asking about shifter build advice followed by "Just play ____." Didnt even really get that. Just dead. Not even my group is interested in talking about, I have to initiate the discussion and all they do is talk about other classes. Anyone else talk to their groups about the shifter? How did it go?


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I'm happy to read any Shifter thread just in hopes that someone has come up with a cool thing to do with the class (or at least something I like.) So far, no takers.

Looking forward to the errata that explains how the Oozemorph works though.

Is there a player companion coming soon that will directly reference Ultimate Wilderness and might hotfix some things? The same way that Advanced Class Origins or Occult Origins did?

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